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I have just received yours of yesterday, and regret to hear that you had not received the letter I directed to you at Worcester - not because the letter was of much value, but because I should be sorry to have you suppose I should neglect to answer your own. I put it in the office Wednesday morning, directed to you to the care of Mr. White, hoping you would get it Wednesday evening. The purport of it was that the authority of the decisions of a superior court over an inferior one is moral, not legal - and that I know of no decision, no law, nothing in the constitution, nothing in a judge's oath of office, that requires an inferior judge to be bound by the opinions of a superior. He is bound to administer the law as he understands it - and if either party be dissatisfied, he must appeal from the decision, and this right of appeal is a safety value against anarchy.

I thought I would take no notice of Davis's letter. I had an idea of giving a synopsis of its absurdity and contradictions but concluded that it were better that I should not - inasmuch as Marsh had requested him to review the book, and there was nothing in the review ill-natured towards me - And I was afraid that if I should review it as its merits deserve he would think I was ill-natured towards him. If you feel inclined to squib him a little, I have no objection-although I think its absurdities too apparent to claim much time or thought from anybody by way of answer. The whole amount of him argument is that the constitution has no meaning of its own, but chameleon-like takes the hue of public opinion, or the public will, and changes with it - Pshaw!

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Athol, Oct. 27, 1845

Dear Bradburn,

I have just received yours of yesterday, and regret to hear that you had not received the letter I directed to you at Worcester - not because the letter was of much value, but because I should be sorry to have you suppose I should neglect to answer your own. I put it in the office Wednesday morning, directed to you to the care of Mr. White, hoping you would get it Wednesday evening. The purport of it was that the authority of the decisions of a superior court over an inferior one is moral, not legal - and that I know of no decision, no law, nothing in the constitution, nothing in a judge's oath of office, that requires an inferior judge to be bound by the opinions of a superior. He is bound to administer the law as he understands it - and if either party be dissatisfied, he must appeal from the decision, and this right of appeal is a safety value against anarchy.

I thought I would take no notice of Davis's letter. I had an idea of giving a synopsis of its absurdity and contradictions but concluded that it were better that I should not - inasmuch as Marsh had requested him to review the book, and there was nothing in the review ill-natured towards me - And I was afraid that if I should review it as its merits deserve he would think I was ill-natured towards him. If you feel inclined to squib him a little, I have no objection-although I think its absurdities too apparent to claim much time or thought from anybody by way of answer. The whole amount of him argument is that the constitution has no meaning of its own, but chameleon-like takes the hue of public opinion, or the public will, and changes with it - Pshaw!